I've read about the restless energy that the last stages of pregnancy bring about... well, I baked a batch of cupcakes last night. I haven't done so since before I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and now that I have most of my sugars under control and the baby is almost here - I thought, why not?
It's Halloween, after all!
I baked these chocolate babies with applesauce to reduce the number of calories and fat in them, but whipped up some cream cheese frosting with orange zest and the juice of half an orange (not to mention three cups of sifted confectioners' sugar).
But that's not all I did.
I then took out my Martha Stewart spider web cupcake stencil and dusted some unsweetened cocoa powder on top. I also melted white chocolate chips, then used a fork and some parchment paper to scratch out different designs that looked "webby" to me, and stuck them in the freezer.
While the white chocolate was solidifying, I took out my black M&Ms, black jimmies and colored nonpareils to make an assembly line for the little spiders.
I broke the cold, hardened white chocolate into smaller pieces to stick into the cupcakes, then dabbed each one with a black M&M for the spider body. Next came the little legs in the form of black jimmies - with tweezers in hand, on they went. Then I took the little red nonpareils for some devilish eyes and some white nonpareils for more ghostly eyes for the spiders. Using the same tweezers, I dipped each dot into a small bit of frosting to adhere to the M&M body.
They turned out pretty darn cute!
I packaged them in little Halloween gift boxes for a girlfriend and my family, and made the deliveries this afternoon.
When I got back home, MS and I placed our Halloween wares outside for the trick-or-treaters. I tried to cutesy up MS' scary hell-raiser pumpkin with my own batty paper bags lit with battery operated tea lights that flickered like real candles.
Here was my own non-threatening, homegrown pumpkin using Japanese washi tape and electrical tape over my rounded belly. All in all, we had about 15 trick-or-treaters this year. More than years past, and some super cute! My favorites were the little ones who stumbled over their words as they were prompted by loving parents to say, "Twick or Tweet!"
I'm sure that will be us in the years to come!
2 comments:
Pretty soon, you will have your own trick or treater to add to the 15 that came to your house! Hee hee, your pumpkin tummy is very cute!
Thanks PE! Can't wait to dress him up next year! Maybe I'll be ambitious and MAKE a costume. First things first though, need to learn how to sew! LOL!
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